Author Topic: OS X Maintenance (Read 18623 times)

rongold · « **on:** September 11, 2003, 06:13:39 AM »

Having gotten into habit of weekly maintenance while using OS 8.6, based on posts here, are there suggestions as to maintenance routine with OS X?

Since I don't leave my computer on all night, I don't rely on system to run cron daily, weekly and monthly maintenance scripts. Instead, I am using Cocktail, which though shareware, enables most of the maintenance chores to be done with one program rather than with several freeware programs (e.g. Cache Out, MacJanitor, Maintenance1). I also run Diskwarrior 3.

My question is how often to do this. The easy part is the cron scripts (daily, wekly, monthly). How frequently should Disk Warrior, cache deletion, and other chores such as log deletion, be run?

I am on 17" iMac G4, OS 10.2.6, 512 MB RAM. My primary uses are email, relatively small amount of daily browsing, and lots of word processing.

Thanks.

kelly · « **Reply #1 on:** September 11, 2003, 09:07:16 AM »

Don't have Diskwarrior. But just to start. Once a month?

kps · « **Reply #2 on:** September 11, 2003, 10:03:29 AM »

The daily,weekly,monthly cron jobs won't run when the machine is sleeping anyway. What I have done is change the time for the system to run the scripts when the machine is likely to be on, that way they run quietly in the background. I set all of them to run at 9:30AM. You can do this as root, either in the terminal or with BBEdit's "command line plug-in, by editing the time portion of the /etc/crontab file.

The weekly script also does log rotation, so it's not necessary to trash logs manually or with Cocktail.

DiskWarrior....like kelly says.

I have had no reason to delete any caches...yet. I'd only do it if problems develop, I don't think it necessary as part of regular maintenance.

ljocampo · « **Reply #3 on:** September 11, 2003, 06:37:00 PM »

I run Diskwarrior 3 once a month (as Kelly suggest) and I use Retrospect to backup every week. I clean the caches only if it seems to need it. And since you boot up everyday, as I do, you really don't need any other maintenance, because OS X rebuilds itself at boot time.

June Drabek · « **Reply #4 on:** September 11, 2003, 08:34:54 PM »

What is this "cron" I am reading about ?

ljocampo · « **Reply #5 on:** September 11, 2003, 11:59:29 PM »

June:

CRON refers to UNIX system routines that do garbage collection, i.e. file maintenance chores to those who don't know the lingo. These chores (cron routines) are usually done automatically by the UNIX systems. However, as KPS says above, they're scheduled to run in the early AM hours. Since Apple basically hasn't addressed this AM issue, programs like MacJanitor automate these cron routine for people who never have their computers on in the early AM hours, and subsequencially, the garbage doesn't get thrown out. Download a free copy of MacJanitor (using it is a simple one click deal), and follow the other suggestions in the post above.

June Drabek · « **Reply #6 on:** September 12, 2003, 02:25:47 PM »

ljocampo....I downloaded Macjanitor, and I now have one copy on my hard disk, one copy on the dock, and one on the desktop, which does not want to be trashed. It tells me, " Macjanitor cannot be moved because the disk Macjanitor is in use"...does that mean it will live in three different places on my computer now ? Mercy !!!

Mrious_be · « **Reply #7 on:** September 12, 2003, 02:57:41 PM »

A guess:
You downloaded MacJanitor, which is a .dmg file stuffed as a .sit.
After downloading, you unstuffed it (or osx did it by itself) and a "drive" icon appeared on your desktop.
You copied the drive icon to a folder where you wanted the program to be saved.
The one in your dock is just an alias, that is put there by the program.
When MacJanitor runs, the alias will be visible, it can stay visible if you do "ctrl+click" on the icon in your dock and choose it from the popup menu.
The reason why the drive didn't wanted to trash is probably cause you opened the program from on your desktop, and it was still running while you tried to delete it.
OR the icon in your dock is an alias pointing out to the drive icon on your desktop, and not to the copy that you put in one of your folders.

I think this should solve that problem

Mrious_be · « **Reply #8 on:** September 12, 2003, 02:59:53 PM »

QUOTE(ljocampo @ Sep 12 2003, 6:59 AM)

However, as KPS says above, they're scheduled to run in the early AM hours.

Do you know what hours to?
It's very interesting actually

June Drabek · « **Reply #9 on:** September 12, 2003, 03:19:13 PM »

mrious_be

It just keeps growing.....this is what my trash contains now. Still one in dock, which I placed there..one on hard drive, and one on desktop. Woe is me.

MacJanitor_1.2.1.dmg.sit
MacJanitor 1.2.1 alias copy
MacJanitor 1.2.1 alias copy 2
MacJanitor 1.2.1 alias copy 3
MacJanitor 1.2.1
<-- Drag 'MacJanitor' to your hard drive
MacJanitor 1.2.1 alias
MacJanitor_1.2.1.dmg
MacJanitor 1.2.1 alias copy 1

ljocampo · « **Reply #10 on:** September 12, 2003, 04:00:21 PM »

June:

The one on the desktop is probably the disk image (dmg file). To get rid of it you need to eject it by draging it to the trash or control clicking and choose eject from the contextual menu. This is NOT the program, it's a dmg file. You should have double clicked this dmg file first and dragged the MacJanitor program to your applications folder and run the program from this one.

The one the dock should be an aliases, unless you mistakenly dragged the dmg file there instead. Look to see if there is a little black triangle. If so quit it the normal way. Either way, just drag it out of the dock. If it goes puff and vanishes, it was an aliases to the program, but if it stays on the desktop, it's probably the dmg file so drag it to the trash and or eject.

Once you have quit the program and and put all those extra icons in the trash you should be able to empty the trash. If not log out and then back in to reset everything and then empty the trash.

After all this you should have only one MacJanitor application (hint: if get info doesn't say its an application you still have the dmg file) in your applications folder where you dragged it. The reason you got into this trouble in the first, is not your fault. It's the developer's fault because he used a custon icon for the dmg (disk image) file that is the same as the program. This is a real no no in interface design.

ljocampo · « **Reply #11 on:** September 12, 2003, 04:05:11 PM »

Mrious: That's a real UNIX mystery. But if if you really need to, I guess you can go to the BSD website and find out, Apple uses 4.4BSD as it's OS X UNIX core.

Mrious_be · « **Reply #12 on:** September 13, 2003, 03:05:20 AM »

QUOTE(ljocampo @ Sep 12 2003, 11:05 PM)

Mrious: That's a real UNIX mystery. But if if you really need to, I guess you can go to the BSD website and find out, Apple uses 4.4BSD as it's OS X UNIX core.

I'm not sure if i want to dig into that

But i'll try to see anyway

thx

Mrious_be · « **Reply #13 on:** September 13, 2003, 03:06:42 AM »

Aaargh, i posted the same reply twice... well the board did

First had an error, than had the "flood control" message, than it worked but it seems it added the reply already by than.

June Drabek · « **Reply #14 on:** September 13, 2003, 11:47:19 AM »

I installed and ran Macjanitor, then went to look at some other programs, and couldn't get to anything. So I shut down the comuter..came back about an hour later, turned it on and was able to go anywhere, but Macjanitor has completely disappeared. Do you think it is rejecting me or my eMac ?

News:

Author Topic: OS X Maintenance (Read 18623 times)